Dealing with Conflict in Marriage

August 4, 2011 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

This month I’d like to explore some ways to look at areas of marital conflict. We have had several couples talk to us this month about difficult conflicts in their relationships, so I guess that has made this topic stand out.

When we have areas where we constantly clash or are offended, there is usually a deeper root. Since finding that deeper root involves opening up and being vulnerable, many couples never try. It is easier to grouse about the symptoms on one side. Or on the other hand, to bear the nagging of an annoyed mate rather than deal with the deeper issues.

Let’s peak in on one couple and see if we can discover some underlying causes and some possible adjustments that could make this marriage better.

[Read more…]

The Brain-growing Magic of Foreign Languages

August 4, 2011 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

Some of you are already raising your kids in a multi-lingual home. Congratulations! Here’s some proof that it is worth the trouble. Some of you have your children in day care or preschool where a foreign language is spoken as well as English. Good job! If you haven’t considered exposing your children to a foreign language, read on. This article was published by GreatSchools.org

“I’m so atrocious at languages,” my Czech artist friend moans with her characteristic Slavic purr. “It vas always so harrrrd for me in school.”

[Read more…]

Music and Your Child’s Mind

August 4, 2011 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

First Steps is always trying to provide you with good, reliable information to help you make choices for your children. When considering whether music lessons are important, you should take a look at this summary of research that has been done on the effects of learning to play an instrument. This article was published in GreatSchools.org
Here are seven areas where studies have shown the benefits of music to kids’ education and development:

Language processing: Several recent studies suggest that the brain processes music and language in similar ways, and that training in music may have benefits for language-related skills. The Neurosciences Institute reports that its research has “revealed a significant degree of overlap between music and language processing,” and in a 2005 study , researchers at Stanford University found that mastering a musical instrument improves the way the human brain processes parts of spoken language. The findings suggested that students who are struggling with language and reading skills could especially benefit from musical training.

[Read more…]

Autism Anxiety in Pregnancy

July 15, 2011 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

Anne’s daughter was less than an hour old when she asked: “Do you think she’s autistic?” Her question didn’t surprise me. A lot of parents ask about autism these days as they face one of their biggest fears. This was Anne’s first baby and I told her what I know to be true: “She looks perfect to me. Odds are she’s a healthy, unique little girl.” Odds are, she won’t be autistic either, but you can’t tell right from the start.

Many parents, like Anne, are terrified that something they did or didn’t do could cause their children to be among the 0.4 to one percent of children who develop autism. Last week a new study in the Archives of General Psychiatry linked autism with antidepressants. Another study of twins revealed that most cases of autism are caused by environmental than genetic conditions, though genetics plays a part. We’ve been told autism is not caused by vaccinations, but might be caused by chemical toxins. A study published this year in the journal Pediatrics says babies born less than a year after their sibling are at greater risk for autism. Those born prematurely or with older parents are too. Then again, maybe they’re not. These studies are not conclusive. They just provide hints and for too many parents, something new to be frightened of. Bottom line: We don’t know what causes autism yet.

If only about one percent of children develop some degree of autism, that means 99 percent don’t. Of that one percent, studies say about two-thirds are high functioning. Autism is a spectrum disorder, which means the variety symptoms and behaviors associated with it range from slight to severe. Their symptoms impact how they experience the world, but may not slow them down. That’s what parents are really scared of: having a child with such severe symptoms that they’ll be disabled. They don’t hear enough about the brilliant children who have autism.

To read more: Autism Anxiety in Pregnancy

Understanding Asperger’s Syndrome

July 8, 2011 By Diane Constantine Leave a Comment

Asperger’s syndrome, sometimes called nerd syndrome, is a neurological disorder categorized under the umbrella of autistic spectrum disorders.

Autism: An overview

by Marian Wilde , GreatSchools Staff

Asperger’s syndrome has become a controversial diagnosis to describe children exhibiting various difficulties with social behavior. Like autism it affects an individual’s ability to successfully interact with others.

Although children with Asperger’s syndrome (or AS) can have normal or above-normal intelligence, when they start school they often experience difficulty functioning in the social world of the classroom. In fact, it’s not unusual for these children to remain unidentified as having Asperger’s until starting school. The majority of AS children are diagnosed between the ages of 5 and 11.

“As we become more familiar with the variety of differences in our children, a growing number of school-aged children with impairments in complex social behaviors are being referred for assessments and treatment,” says Dr. Mariam King of the Pervasive Developmental Disorders Clinic at the University of California, San Francisco.

What are the symptoms of Asperger’s syndrome?

Children diagnosed with AS generally show normal development until age 4 in speech, self-help skills and curiosity about the world around them.

A concerned parent should look for many, but not necessarily all, of these signs:

Repetitive language
Impairment in the use of nonverbal behaviors, such as making eye-to-eye contact
Conversation that centers around the self
A voice that can be emotionless
Eccentric vocal characteristics
Dyslexia or other writing problems
A tendency to think literally rather than abstractly
Clumsy or awkward motor skills
Inappropriate or insensitive social behaviors

How common is it?

Although scientists have been studying autism since the 1940s, Asperger’s syndrome has only been researched intensively in the past few decades. It was initially described by Viennese pediatrician Hans Asperger in 1944, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that the disorder was widely recognized in the English-speaking world. As a result, there’s a lack of solid data on the prevalence of Asperger’s syndrome.

Our understanding of Asperger’s is still unfolding, with diagnostic criteria only recently being established in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) in 1994.

For many years it was thought that one in 166 individuals has an Autism Spectrum Disorder, a range of disorders that includes Asperger’s syndrome and the more severe disability, classic autism. In February 2007, new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that in many areas of the United States the rate of autism in 8-year-olds is as high as one in 150.

What is the difference between autism and AS?

Read more from GreatSchools.org on Asperger’s Syndrome